Luke mentions the ‘attendant’ to whom Jesus gives back the scroll, an official in the synagogue, and when he ‘sits down’ this does not mean that he joins the congregation, but that he takes his seat as a teacher ready to give a sermon from a central place, which allows ‘the eyes of everyone’ to be on him. Luke uses the word for ‘unrolling’ rather than the more general term ‘open’, reflecting how you actually handled a scroll. It is unclear whether there would first have been a reading of the Torah prior to the reading of the haftarah and whether there was a set reading or Jesus himself chose what to read from. Despite this, there are also interesting details which are faithful to what little we do know about first century synagogue practice. The other notable difference between Luke and the other two gospels is that most of the material here is unique to Luke, including the content of Jesus’ reading and teaching, the anticipation of the proverb, and the examples (omitted in the lectionary reading) of the grace of God coming to the gentiles in the prophetic ministries of Elijah and Elisha. But the connections continue into Acts, suggesting that Luke sees this teaching of Jesus as programmatic for his follower as well, and this is hinted at in the substitution of the well known gospel term kerusso ‘proclaim’ in Luke 4.18 where the LXX that this is quoted from uses a different term. This suggests that Luke has put the episode here because of its programmatic nature it introduces this major Galilean section of the gospel up to Luke 9.51, when Jesus ‘sets his face to Jerusalem, and many of the following examples of Jesus’ ministry are examples of just the sorts of things mention in his reading from the scroll. First, in Matthew and Mark the episode comes some way into Jesus’ ministry, and some of Luke’s account (such as Luke 4.23 which anticipates the taunt at the cross in all three Synoptics) confirms that this was later, rather than initial, teaching. The comparison with what appear to be parallel passages in Matt 13.54–58 and Mark 6.1–6 is instructive for two reasons.
The phrase ‘their synagogues’ is striking, suggestion (as Luke makes clear in other places) that he is writing to a gentile audience who are removed from the geographical area (note that Matthew talks of ‘their synagogue’ in Matt 13.54, but this is a specific rather than general reference). Although Luke does relate the ‘power of the Spirit’ to Jesus’ miracles and healings elsewhere, he also regularly links this to Jesus’ teaching ministry, as he does here very clearly. Luke’s mention of both the Spirit and ‘power’ is characteristic, and adds an extra dimension to the importance of Jesus having the Spirit come upon him ( as I have explored elsewhere). The section linking the temptations in the desert with the Nazareth incident is brief but interesting. More serious, though, is the ending of the passage at verse 21, when the whole episode runs to verse 28, and we should take the lectionary here as ‘advisory’ and read through to the end of the story as Luke presents it to us. As is often the case with the lectionary, the reading is rather displaced and truncated the previous episode is the temptation in the wilderness, which we will read at the beginning of Lent, and the following week we revert back to Luke 2 as we celebrate the presentation of Jesus in the temple. The lectionary reading for Epiphany 3 in Year C is Luke 4.14–21.
0 kommentar(er)
